Editing The Pen Addict 437/transcript (section)

== Left-Hand Writing Challenges ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. So, I have a picture in my head of how an A goes, right? And the picture is traditionally bottom left to top middle and down, right? So, there's, that stroke is then has to transfer to my left hand where it, if I was learning from scratch, it might be easier to have a different start and stop point for an A or a B or a C. But I'm just trying to transfer that over to my left hand the same way I write it right-handed. Right. So, it's a little bit of a challenge.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Normally, you're coming at it from the opposite angle. You're also coming from upside down. So, like, there's just going to be things that you do that are ingrained in you that aren't going to produce the same result. Also, like, the angle at which you're holding the pen might be wrong. I don't know. So, yeah, it's basically, if you really do want to commit to that, you need to spend some real time doing it. But I guess you might not have to commit to it the way that we were thinking you may have to. Right. Because it seems like at least that it's not going to be so long.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Exactly. So, I'll still probably, I'm going to practice it more because even right now, like, I can't even, like, halfway do the right handwriting thing because it ends up hurting quickly. Like, I shouldn't be doing that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You really, really shouldn't. You're not allowing yourself time to heal. I'm not giving it a break. And, you know, like, if you want to be back to full health once this is over, you've got to treat the injury seriously.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Yep. So, you know, and it's a whole thing. Like, when you're learning how to rewrite again, you know, everything is different. And I'm just trying to, like, mirror how I do it right-handed. And it's not super effective. Plus, you get really tired. Yeah. You know, you have a lot more hand strain. Even though I've noticed that I grip the pencil lighter left-handed than right-handed, it's just a different movement. And, like, your hand gets tired quicker. So, you know, I'm working on it. I'm going to keep practicing. I'll keep sharing it. I don't know that I'm going to go full lefty mode for the next several weeks. But we'll see. Maybe I will. Just because I'm already frustrated at the lack of usage that I get for, like, my pens and pencils and things like that. Like, I'm sitting there staring at them at my desk, and it's just frustrating that I can't just do what I did a few weeks ago. But, again, so short-term, so big-picture insignificant that it's no big deal.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The one thing we were talking about last week is I was urging people not to buy things from you because you'd have to do the packing. And then you restocked your wonderful BicClick loaner pen, which people can go look at in the sense they don't know what I'm talking about. And I feel like I'm not sure why you did that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' People have been – I've been out of them for a couple months. And people have been, like, constantly emailing, like, they want those pens. No, I'm sure. Just because they're great. And I've got them. And I've got help shipping. So, like, my wife's shipping. So, we're shipping. I'm shipping less. Like, this doesn't really help to say it on the podcast because people who are ordering stuff aren't necessarily listening to this. But I normally ship two days a week, right? It's kind of a good pacing for every business that I run. I ship. So, Wednesdays and Sundays were my shipping days for Knock, Spoke, and Pen Addict. Okay. Now, it's about once a week. Right. Whenever, you know, me and Mary Beth can commit to a couple hours to get out there and do it together. So, I felt like that's good enough to get those out there. I have a sneaky knock release that I'm going to do today, too.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Brad Downey, you can't be stopped. You're a monster.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, I sent you – I replied to your tweet with a gif of Lord Business from the Lego movie. And that's what we refer to it as when I do things like that. It's like Lord Business is taking over. And that's just what you got to do.

'''Myke Hurley:''' What knock release do you have?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's secret. So, put it this way. I shared it on stream yesterday. I have a – I had a box show up last week. Unannounced. No email, advance notice, no tracking, no nothing. Big box shows up from our case manufacturer. And I knew I wasn't owed anything. There should be nothing arriving right now. And I opened it up and saw what it was. And it was the Burton case that we did for the 2019 Pen Addict campaign. The wax canvas pouch, A5 pouch, which was one of the best things we've ever done.

'''Myke Hurley:''' One of the very best. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' One of my favorite products. And apparently – so, what our manufacturer does is they hold products until we say ship them, right? So, like if I was explaining this. If we order 1,000 cases, I can say, okay, ship me $250 and then sell those. Then, okay, ship me $250 and whatever. But the manufacturer at the end of the year, they just unload, like whatever you haven't sent out, right? If it's been sitting there for, you know, a while. They don't want to carry the inventory into the next year. So, that's what this was. They found – like I didn't think I was owed any more cases. They found a box of about 70 cases. Wow. Okay. I'm going to shoot out an email to the NotCo mailing list probably this afternoon and just release those just because. It's like we don't have anything special coming before the holidays, but this was a nice little surprise, and I know some people wanted that case. And I'm keeping it at the same price because I paid the same price as we did in 2019. But it will – if we ever do this again, it will be much more expensive than what you're going to get it for when I release these. It will be the same price as before, which was $50, which – like I wrote this all. I already have the newsletter written, and I put a comparison. I was like, just look at the pricing that we had for the Wax Canvas Brasstowns and Sinclair's. In this campaign, you'll know how the pricing has changed from, you know, the year, year and a half difference in these product launches. So, I know the next time won't be as cheap, but I'm going to keep the price the same just because, you know, I paid the same price. So, we'll just pass that on to the customers. But next time, I'm just preparing people to say, remember that time it was $50 and you're telling me it's whatever now? It's like I'm preparing you now. It's going to go up.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's probably the best knock product we did.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's really – For a Kickstarter. It's really well done. It's good. It's really useful. It covers a lot of bases, and I will be making a new one eventually.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. It's a little bit more general purpose.